Like a Bird...

Photo found here.

Several months ago, I was entering a store and I saw a bird. It flew nearby me as I walked along the sidewalk. As I drew nearer to the store, the bird flew into the window! Aw, poor bird! I watched as the bird fell to the ground and flailed around briefly before I went into the store. I began to think about the bird, and how we as humans feel that way sometimes. We are just flying along when BAM! Something stops up in our tracks, we lay flailing (metaphorically) on the hard, cold cement.

Just this past week, I felt that way as I heard the news of the horrible shooting in Newtown, CT. Poor, innocent children who were attending school on a Friday, same as they had every week for the past few months. But they would not come home that Friday. I have tried to make sense of it, and there is just no real reason. Why a school? We don't know. Little six and seven-year-old children who had done nothing to the evil coward who killed them. So unexpected, shocking...

Photo found here.

And then, two thousand years ago, a young woman's plans were derailed when she had a dream. The LORD appeared to her, and announced that her life would forever be changed. She would become the mother of Jesus, the Christ, the Son of the Most High God. She may have likely been shocked, stunned at this unexpected news. What was the young servant's response to this news? "May it be to me as You have said."(Luke 1:38) Would I have reacted the same way? I'm not sure. I hope so. Food for thought in this Christmas season.

The best part of my first story? The bird was jumping, hopping and beginning to fly around when I left the store. I have a feeling that we will recover from this shocking news too. God may even have something special planned in the midst of it.

(The third story taken from a portion of our Sunday sermon, shared by our pastor at our church.)

Luke 1:26-38

The Birth of Jesus Foretold

In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary.  The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”

Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be.  But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God.  You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus.  He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”

“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”

 The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called^[b] the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month.  For no word from God will ever fail.”

 “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.